NORWICH – Tuesday the state carried through with its threat to close down a City of Norwich business for failing to pay sales taxes despite repeated warnings.

The Larger Furniture Warehouse was seized by the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance yesterday. According to a warrant filed with the County Clerk’s Office Aug. 13, the business owed $94,263.37 in overdue sales tax. Since that time, the state has had the option of seizing the company and its assets, but did not exercise that option until 2 p.m. yesterday.

“This is always our last resort. There are letters sent and several phone calls made in an attempt to collect. We also sent a representative to explain possible payment options and make arrangements. Finally when all these things have been exhausted, we file a tax warrant, which is basically a lien, which doesn’t mean we are going to seize, but that we have that option. At some point the decision was made that we had no other recourse and in order to protect the integrity of the system and keep the company’s debt from growing even worse, we took this action,” said Michael Bucci, spokesman for the state Department of Taxation and Finance.

Bucci said the department had received undisclosed information that led it to believe that the money owed was not likely to ever get paid in good faith.